There is a need for effective ways to dispose of waste products in an environmentally safe way. There is a particular need for technologies that will keep material including used tires out of landfills and for processes that will convert materials such as used tires and other waste material otherwise destined for the landfill into useful products or material.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,976,484 is one prior art patent that does show the use of tires as a resource. The tires are cut up and reduced by heat to products such as oil and semi-activated carbon. Prior art systems have been too elaborate and expensive to be commercially practical. In some cases, used tires are just burned for fuel in high energy need processes such as cement kilns. While this provides some value and does keep tires out of dumps and landfills it is still a low value use and requires significant scrubbing of the exhaust gases produced.
As can be seen there is a need for simple and inexpensive ways to reduce the flow of material to landfills. In particular there is a need for processes that will provide better uses for used tire waste and do this in an environmentally safe way.